McCullers, Carson [Smith]
McCullers, Carson [Smith]( 1917–67),was born in Georgia, where most of her works are set, although she was long resident in New York City. She immediately achieved great critical prominence with her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), in which a deaf-mute in a Southern town loses his only friend, another mute, and turns to others who give him their confidence, such as a lonely, music-loving girl, a black doctor, and a young radical. It was appreciated for its compassionate treatment of individualism and its sensitive style, and also because it was considered a symbolic commentary on fascism. Her second novel, Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941), is a shorter work, a macabre story of experiences in an army camp in the South before World War II. The Member of the Wedding (1946) with great sensitivity presents the feelings of a 12-year-old girl on the occasion of her brother's impending wedding, and was successfully...
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